Rams vs. Broncos history: Denver has dominated preseason series

Rams vs. Broncos history: Denver has dominated preseason series

The Los Angeles Rams will visit Denver this Saturday night to face the Broncos in Week 3 of the NFL preseason. With wins over the Dallas Cowboys and Kansas City Chiefs, the Rams have yet to lose this preseason, while the Broncos are 1-1.

Being in opposite conferences, the Broncos and Rams haven’t met many times during the regular season, squaring off just 13 times. The same goes for the preseason, where the teams have met only seven times. While the Rams hold an 8-5 regular season advantage, the Broncos have taken seven of the nine preseason games.

Here are some notes regarding the preseason history between these two teams:

Denver leads preseason series 7-2.

Los Angeles won first ever preseason meeting, defeating Denver 26-13 at Mile High Stadium. The starting quarterbacks for those teams were Vince Ferragamo for Los Angeles, and Craig Morton for Denver.

The teams had the rare opportunity to place twice during the 1987 preseason. Los Angeles defeated Denver 28-27 in the American Bowl, which took place in London. Less than three weeks later, the Broncos avenged that defeat, beating the Rams 24-20 at Anaheim Stadium.

The Rams have not beaten Denver in the preseason since that American Bowl game.

Denver and the St. Louis Rams played in the preseason just twice, with the Broncos winning in 1998 and again in 2013.

The Broncos and Rams met in the third preseason game—often considered the dress rehearsal game—just three years ago. Denver held on for a thrilling, hard-fought 27-26 win.

In that game, Peyton Manning put the ball in the air 34 times, completing 25 passes with a first quarter touchdown toss to Demaryius Thomas. Eric Decker caught six passes for 66 yards and the defense registered four sacks, but the outcome still came down to the final moments.

The Rams scored on a 1-yard touchdown pass from Kellen Clemens to Zach Potter with just 39 seconds left in the game, and the Rams then went for the two-point conversion to try to win it. Clemens tried to throw for it, but his pass fell incomplete.

The Broncos left with the win, as they’ll hope to do this week. Still, seeing the development of certain players and having at least one guy finally step up at the quarterback position will be much more important on the list this week.

Though the Rams have won four of the last five regular-season meetings with Denver, they haven’t beaten the Broncos in the preseason in nearly 30 years.

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